How Valve's updated Steam Distribution Agreement prevented a longer RDR2 delay

[WYP]

There's a reason why the delay was for one month.



Read more about how Valve prevented a longer Steam delay for Red Dead Redemption 2.

 

[Warchild]

Everyone so quick to slam Epic but still fail to see the greed from Valve.

Its basically saying either you give us our 30% cut or don't bother launching on our platform ever. This is bullying.

Everyone knows most sales will come from Steam, and Valve know it, so in doing this agreement its passively forcing them to comply.

I hope for Rockstar sake that everyone goes via their own platform and give Valve a middle finger. Sadly we know there are too many Steam cry babies who don't like change.

 

[ET3D]

The war is heating up. I wonder how this will play in the long run. Sure, Valve still has enough power to push publishers around like this, but if anyone decides to not appear on Steam, will Valve truly be willing to give up on that game for good?

 

[WYP]

The war is heating up. I wonder how this will play in the long run. Sure, Valve still has enough power to push publishers around like this, but if anyone decides to not appear on Steam, will Valve truly be willing to give up on that game for good?

I'm wondering how long it takes for Valve to start making exceptions. Destiny 2 would not be on Steam now if this policy was enacted earlier this year.

 

[demonking]

Anyone who see's Gabe Newell or Valve as the good guys in PC gaming is seriously deluded. All we have here is a business that has operated a monopoly for the last 2 decades trying not to lose it.
Its too late for Valve now, whilst I hate having to open so many different programmes to get to my games, I do despise valve though for the way they have handled everything.

 

[Legacy-ZA]

I see it as; they have to pay a premium because they get access to a major market to sell their goods.

I personally don't want 7+ damn launchers on my machine and that while their platforms are inferior and nor do I want to keep re-adding friends on new platforms. Imagine having to use more than one twitter or facebook, imagine using 7+ of those?

No thank you. I would rather stick to Steam, even if I had to wait 1 year later. I still haven't bought new releases from companies that tried to force my hand to another platform. If devs asked nicely, maybe, but they don't, EVERYONE here is greedy, that includes Valve. If you have a better product, that will be used instead of others. That is, if you are not a fanboy, or have misplaced loyalty. Launch all titles on every platform at the same time, may the best man win.

It's customers that are ultimately getting screwed here at the moment.

 

[Dark NighT]

I see it as; they have to pay a premium because they get access to a major market to sell their goods.

I personally don't want 7+ damn launchers on my machine and that while their platforms are inferior and nor do I want to keep re-adding friends on new platforms. Imagine having to use more than one twitter or facebook, imagine using 7+ of those?

No thank you. I would rather stick to Steam, even if I had to wait 1 year later. I still haven't bought new releases from companies that tried to force my hand to another platform. If devs asked nicely, maybe, but they don't, EVERYONE here is greedy, that includes Valve. If you have a better product, that will be used instead of others. That is, if you are not a fanboy, or have misplaced loyalty. Launch all titles on every platform at the same time, may the best man win.

It's customers that are ultimately getting screwed here at the moment.

Could not have said better myself!
I don't like Epics tactics, i don't like Valve's greed and lazy attitude but i also hate having multiple launchers, accounts and stuff to remember, so i keep to steam when i can and don't mind waiting a year for a game to get on there, got plenty other things to do.

 

[Legacy-ZA]

Could not have said better myself!
I don't like Epics tactics, i don't like Valve's greed and lazy attitude but i also hate having multiple launchers, accounts and stuff to remember, so i keep to steam when i can and don't mind waiting a year for a game to get on there, got plenty other things to do.

Yep, lots of things to keep oneself busy with and usually, by playing those games at a later date, a new generation of GPU or CPU launched that makes me get higher FPS too.

Next year 7nm nVidia cards with RTX? Yes please, will go nicely with the delayed titles.

 

[grec]

Guys can you actually point to any moral reason you object to exclusivity in this case, or is it just that you don't like using multiple launchers?(Which by the way can be easily subverted using Steam's custom shortcut functionality or software like GoG Galaxy 2) Product exclusivity exists in essentially every market ancient or modern and at no point should you ever feel entitled to be able to buy a product in a place the creator of that product specifically wishes to avoid sale through due to disputes regarding the sellers cut. Giving developers and indeed any artist or producer the ability to bargain with their distributors or contractors, and exclude distributors who attempt to push them into uneven deals they don't agree with, is fundamental to the operation of any free market. The risk that companies can choose to turn Valve down whenever and however they like is the only thing stopping Valve from saying they want 40%, 50%, 60%, ect, and if developers feel that in an unregulated platform like the PC where other options are available and Valve doesn't have the predominant upkeep costs(Unlike consoles or smartphone stores where the store cut maintains an OS or hardware platform) 30% is too big of a cut then they should be able to exercise their right to bargain with Valve. Attempting to attack developers, artists, manufacturers, publishers, ect for choosing not to accept what they deem to be unfair distribution deals is the pinnacle of customer entitlement imo.

 

[ImprovizoR]

Guys can you actually point to any moral reason you object to exclusivity in this case

Consumers should always have a choice. It's not like the publishers will go bankrupt by allowing consumers to pick their platform. They'll make their money. It's the least they can do. Now, I don't have a problem with Rockstar's launcher. I used it for GTA V and I'll use it for RDR2. I would have a problem if it were exclusive to Rockstar launcher forever. The same is true for Epic. I don't have a problem with its existence or even with using it. My problem with Epic is that they are catering to publishers and developers by forcing consumers to buy from them exclusively. Their business model is based on being anti-consumer. That shouldn't be supported by any gamer.

 

[Greenback]

I have a feeling at some point e will see origin, Blizzard and uplay start going down the exclusive route, and epic valve getting only indi games. It's not as if most people have origin and uplay anyway, and especially if governments start tightening what can be MTX that 30% means alot

 

[grec]

Customers do always have a choice, to buy a product or not. If a customer doesn't like the method of distribution for an entertainment product they can choose not to buy it. But claiming a customer should get to force a creators/publishers hand on the negotiations they're required to do to distribute the product is insane, and would absolutely destroy the industry and its profitability. If a company wants to sell their product in one supermarket and not another, whether because of fees, association, services, ect, they should always have that ability, and just as with any worker negotiating any contract exchanging labour for capital with those who operate their means of production, their right to withhold the fruits of their labour as a bargaining tool is critical to avoiding exploitation of said labour by these middle men who can use their position between the creators and the end customers to gain unworthy influence beyond that a truly free labour market would afford them.

The fact is, the PC gaming industry is broken, developers and publishers big and small are dropping likes flies to bankruptcy, and it's predominantly the "good" ones that are failing, while Steam's 30%+ cut is particularly devastating to many smaller & indie developers and has been for a long time, claiming that tackling Valve's "protection fee" for the PC gaming market is anti-consumer is very short sighted imo, having a healthy industry is better for everyone, good developers going bust all the time helps no one and pushes the industry further into the hands of fewer and fewer huge players who get to charge whatever they like to consumers. In this case it may be a AAA dev who decides they're not getting a fair cut but for the Epic stores's case it's predominantly smaller and indie developers they're sucking in, and for good reason, because publishers and developers have been claiming for years that with Valve's cut, PC simply isn't a viable priority economically anymore, hence why we had an era of the Wii U, PS Vita and PS4 being a haven for truly new indie games while developers put PC support in bargain bin mode.

 

[NeverBackDown]

It's not anti-consumer for a company to decide where a product can be bought though. People have a choice no matter what. To buy or not to buy.

What is anti-consumer behavior is Valve having a monopoly on the gaming industry for PC and having such a vast amount of control and say, that they can charge 30% to Devs because Studios have little other choices. Studios having little choices means the players also do as well, which is what makes it anti-consumer.

Notice how only other billion-dollar companies are the ones making their own storefronts. Because they are the only ones who can. No Studio can afford that investment and therefore are reliant upon Steam and Steam takes a 30% cut. All this had lead to DLC and microtransactions. Smaller studios need to offset that cost somehow. People forget that not only does Valve take 30% cut, so does the government in taxes. Whether that be in the US with State and Federal taxes(which itself in some places can total over 40% or higher), or some other countries governmental taxes.

Epic making things exclusive and paying Studios is to give them another option. Nothing more nothing less. Sure studios may not sell as well but as more and more start selling on other platforms outside of Steam, it will eventually get easier for Studios and Valve will lose some control which only leads to more money into Studios pockets which means better games and therefore better choices to consumers.

 

[ImprovizoR]

Customers do always have a choice, to buy a product or not.

Yeah, you need to take a few economics classes if you want to engage in discussions of such nature. This is just asinine.

It's not anti-consumer for a company to decide where a product can be bought though. People have a choice no matter what. To buy or not to buy.

The same goes for you. But I'll also add, that it absolutely is anti-consumer.


This isn't rocket science, so it really boggles the mind that I have to keep explaining this crap and you still don't understand such a simple concept.


Epic's business model is by very design anti-consumer and pro-corporate. It's not something that's up for debate or even something that Epic would dare to deny. The whole point of what they've been doing revolves around providing publishers with a better deal and in the process robbing consumers of choice to buy the product that they want in other places. How on god's green Earth is that not anti-consumer? If I, as a consumer, wanted to buy a game on Steam, but suddenly that game disappeared and the developer announced that their game would be available exclusively on Epic, because Epic paid for exclusivity, how is that not pro-corporate and anti-consumer? It goes directly against my interest as a consumer, and directly in the interest of the corporation.


If Epic wanted to be pro-consumer they would instead incentivize gamers to buy from their store front by offering them more than the competition, not by eliminating competition. They wouldn't rob consumers of choice by bribing developers and publishers not to release on Steam and other stores. It doesn't get simpler than that.

 

[grec]

The whole argument falls down on the fact that Epic isn't bribing anyone, they're offering a better deal to their product suppliers to get exclusive supply agreements, do you usually protest this in any other industry? It's not like they're not passing on the gains to the consumer either with weekly free games and often lower prices vs Steam. If Valve want more devs they can respond to the market forces and lower their cut to match Epic. It's that simple. To imply that Valve's unwillingness to listen to their key product suppliers requests over a significant period of time is in any ways Epic's fault just doesn't make sense, someone was going to come along and undercut Valve eventually when they're chopping such fat margins in an open platform.

 

[Dark NighT]

Yeah, you need to take a few economics classes if you want to engage in discussions of such nature. This is just asinine.



The same goes for you. But I'll also add, that it absolutely is anti-consumer.


This isn't rocket science, so it really boggles the mind that I have to keep explaining this crap and you still don't understand such a simple concept.


Epic's business model is by very design anti-consumer and pro-corporate. It's not something that's up for debate or even something that Epic would dare to deny. The whole point of what they've been doing revolves around providing publishers with a better deal and in the process robbing consumers of choice to buy the product that they want in other places. How on god's green Earth is that not anti-consumer? If I, as a consumer, wanted to buy a game on Steam, but suddenly that game disappeared and the developer announced that their game would be available exclusively on Epic, because Epic paid for exclusivity, how is that not pro-corporate and anti-consumer? It goes directly against my interest as a consumer, and directly in the interest of the corporation.


If Epic wanted to be pro-consumer they would instead incentivize gamers to buy from their store front by offering them more than the competition, not by eliminating competition. They wouldn't rob consumers of choice by bribing developers and publishers not to release on Steam and other stores. It doesn't get simpler than that.

Sadly even though i completely agree with you here, most people don't see it this way, i would welcome epic if it wasn't doing this exclusivity nonsense and still not working on their storefront, it still doesn't have a shopping cart, it had to rely on another studio to fix things in their own store while they to busy hanging big sacks of money in front of other studios, i mean yeah Valve makes dumb stupid mistakes as well and their greedy cuts are things that need to be looked at, but this behavior of epic is just not helping the industry, i get what they try to do, but how they do it, bad.

 

[NeverBackDown]

This isn't rocket science, so it really boggles the mind that I have to keep explaining this crap and you still don't understand such a simple concept.

Epic's business model is by very design anti-consumer and pro-corporate. It's not something that's up for debate or even something that Epic would dare to deny. The whole point of what they've been doing revolves around providing publishers with a better deal and in the process robbing consumers of choice to buy the product that they want in other places. How on god's green Earth is that not anti-consumer? If I, as a consumer, wanted to buy a game on Steam, but suddenly that game disappeared and the developer announced that their game would be available exclusively on Epic, because Epic paid for exclusivity, how is that not pro-corporate and anti-consumer? It goes directly against my interest as a consumer, and directly in the interest of the corporation.

First off maybe you're opinion is wrong and is the reason you are arguing so often on such a small thing? AFAIK this is the first time you and I are talking about this. Not sure why you are so upset.

Providing a company with a better deal for the same service is not bribery. It's literally just business. If you could save millions and still provide the exact same product, would you take that deal? Of course. Because that is logical business sense.
I don't think you understand what bribery means. It's not illegal or dishonest. It's announced for the world to know, they didn't silently make a deal and trick consumers.

The games that got removed from steam, are still available for steam and get updates. That's not anti-consumer. The promise made was kept. You just can no longer buy that product from that service. The people who bought it are not affected.

Same thing with Bungie. They were locked to Activision because they owned them. People didn't complain about that.
Same thing for Overwatch.
Same thing for COD.

What about the newer Battlefields? You didn't complain about that. EA only. The same goes for the Star Wars titles.

It's been around a long time and people didn't complain.

I just find it so interesting how people are so ironically attacking Epic when Valve has had a monopoly forever, which is quite possibly the most anti-consumer a company can be. Hence why they charge so much to Studios. Not to mention the other billion dollar companies doing the same thing.

 

[Warchild]

This debate is like watching two armies of bald guys fighting over a comb. Sadly there are too many blinded or infatuated with Steam that they can't see how much we needed Epic to force competition. Sadly Steam and their vast finances have managed to get some incredibly good lawyers/think tanks to come up with this disgusting policy.

And yet people still favour steam. The only thing I can say in Steams favour is that I don't recall them doing many exclusive deals if at all. Perhaps L4D2 and Portal 2, but they never needed to because of their domination on the market.

And given how much they bring in from doing almost nothing except acting as a host, it makes me laugh that they are up in arms because of the fact they may be banned from Geoblocking. Geoblock is in my eyes as anti consumer as you can get. How are users happy to accept this? its an actual breach of anti trust rules in EU... side tracking now..

 

[SPS]

If you like to play games and still want to see games being made you should be supporting the Epic games store and boycotting Steam, if they did 12% rather than 30% there wouldn't be an issue.

I also like how gamers won't use another launcher and would rather punish devs who work day and night on little pay...

 

[Warchild]

If you like to play games and still want to see games being made you should be supporting the Epic games store and boycotting Steam, if they did 12% rather than 30% there wouldn't be an issue.

I also like how gamers won't use another launcher and would rather punish devs who work day and night on little pay...

Exactly.

And EPIC CEO has even admitted, If steam reduce their cut, Epic will stop doing exlusive deals, and further more will allow Epic games on steam.

Reading the crunch times going on at Rockstar and Netherrealms just to provide us with something too is atrocious. And yet here we sit whining when Steam don't get the titles we want.


How amazing would it be if the community got together and designed a platform almost non profit for Devs to utilise. I always liked Razer's motto even if I dislike the company "designed by Gamers for Gamers".